One Lonely Racoon in the Annex

People are stupid. It's a freakin' raccoon. If it climbed UP the pole, obviously it can climb DOWN. It was just waiting for everyone to go away and stop staring at it.

While that could very well be true, I can see how folks would think it unlikely that they critter is going to get down in one piece. The pole is smooth and really, really quite tall.

And besides, at face value, you'd think cats would be able to 'just come down' too, meanwhile...

Hrrmmm... Any news on the matter?

On my photoblog commenters noted they were 'happy to hear' he got down.. but i haven't heard that news yet, myself, so i'm not sure.

It would be 40 hours or more by now.

No one in the Annex this afternoon?

The Toronto Sun has a story.

Yep, it's up here for anyone who's interested.. but though speaking in past tense about the "30 hours", they never address a rescue at all. It was probably written yesterday afternoon.

Might pass by later today and see.

The racoon got down. Last night, I had a crazy adventure trying to get it to come down. Me and two other guys (Alex and Josh) watched the city's agencies (police, fire, Animal Services, etc.) balk at any reasonable attempt to help the racoon. To add insult to injury, all the goodwill of neighbours who placed cardboard, mattresses, etc around the post was bulldozed away by City of Toronto personnel. When everyone left the scene at about 2:00am, the three of us borrowed a ladder from the kind folks at Dominion, got up onto the roof and tried to place the ladder across... but it was 4ft too short. #$@! Incidentally, the local grocer at Walmer/Bloor had a longer ladder that would have been ideal, but they were totally unwilling to lend it to us and rudely asked us to leave (shocking, as we thought the "small ma and pa" grocer would be a caring small ma and pa grocer...). Now with no ladder option, Plan B involved the simplest and seemingly most effective solution - we placed a smorgasbord of sliced apples and peanut butter/jam on crackers onto the two new mattresses that were put down long after the city's bulldozer departed. After a few dry runs, at about six am, the racoon made its way down the pole.

I'm so tired now, having been up all night. I plan to post more details about this soon.

It's a short film waiting to happen.

Hey Lee, nice one mate! Poor critter. You probably saved its life.

People are not stupid! How nice to see that people actually care about a living, breathing raccoon. If there were more people willing to take time out of their "busy" day to help like this, the world would be a much nicer place to live.

Thanks for the kind words... The three of us were so happy that the raccoon made it out alive. Needless to say, this was one of the craziest nights of my life and, as Tanja posted - it's a short film waiting to happen. I'm already writing it!

Thank god the raccoon got down. I walked pass the pole that day and was very concerned of the raccoon, which looked so exhuasted on the pole.

i kept thinking about it and searched online to see if there was any news on it. Found your blog. Nice work :p

I love Torontoians

God Bless who ever saved that poor soul. For those people who's mentality is "its a frigg'n racoon" its the simplist deeds in life that count the most. A racoon or a cat, its a living creature in need, its not about religion or faith but about humanity and righteousness and its about saving a soul in need.

Again, good job and Im so proud to be a Torontorian!!!

Shame to all the public works agencies that refused to help, they should all just take their badges and shove em up...

Regards

Hey Ivan- if you could see that light poll- where raccoon was sitting- you would not give such comment- If an animal climbed up- it DOES NOT mean tha it can climb back down at all, besides it is very unlikely that that raccoon could climb that light poll on his own- it could have jump on it from near buy roof- in any case- look at cats, for instance, sometimes they got scared off and climbe the trees and than siting there and meawing untill some one helps it. So dude ......

Lee you are a hero, one for helping the raccoon make it safely down and two for passing on the information. Since I read about this I have been wondering about the poor guy's fate.

Anyone who thinks an animal should be left to suffer and starve deserves about the same themselves. Your city's workers disgrace themselves in their stupidity and callousness.

Raccoons are people too!

Well... this is interesting, a year later and i manage to come across this site. Last year around this time i remember looking up as one of the first people to realize the raccoon was on the pole to begin with, when me and another person called for help and no one responded we decided to call the media. I think it was the best thing i could have done. Thanks all for posting, it made my year... yours truly the local Grocery gal who named the Raccoon "Supersave" Helen Z.